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<title>the rorschach test by kentuckycocktail</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827458">the rorschach test</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kentuckycocktail/pseuds/kentuckycocktail'>kentuckycocktail</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>this friend [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Nirvana (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Drug Use, F/M, Jealousy, Mild Smut, Past Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:41:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,082</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827458</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kentuckycocktail/pseuds/kentuckycocktail</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kurt Cobain/Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>this friend [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194059</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the rorschach test</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>'your wedding ring is on the wrong finger.'</p><p>          it's the first time she's spoken to him since, what, ninety-one? it feels petty that it's the first thing to slip right out of her mouth--but she isn't wrong. it's on the right hand, not the left hand. she tells him as much. he doesn't take it off or even look down at it; instead, he offers her his joint. </p><p>         'here; oh, no, you're holding it with the wrong hand!' </p><p>         she pushes him but he only sways around the railing of the balcony on which they stand, together again, shoulder to shoulder. a party (if you could call the lackadaisical, drugged up, angsty movements of the people in side such a jubilant term) floats on on the other side of the translucent french doors, oblivious to the pair of them reunited in some happenstance matrimony. yet in the truest sense of that word, she'd never have him. had she ever thought that she would? </p><p>         no. never. it's what she feeds herself, anyway. </p><p>         'shut up, kurt.'</p><p>         'I never quite knew how to do that, did I?'</p><p>         'not in the slightest,' she tells him after a pause. she passes back the joint--dutifully poised in the opposite hand this time, just to prove some point she's always been trying to prove. maybe not just to him, no, not just to him, to everyone, always. but it always came back on him. he was always everyone, everything, and--</p><p>         'so, what've you been up to?' </p><p>         she can't think of an acceptable answer. there's only two options, truth or lie. the truth is pathetic; to lie <em>is </em>pathetic. 'oh, just, around.' </p><p>         kurt hikes his elbows onto the slender railing, slick with the eternal rain droplets. he nods, puffing plumes of smoke into the night. it's cheap weed, she knows because she can smell it. he watches her nostrils twitch and she knows that he knows what she's thinking. he's always been good at <em>that</em>. </p><p>         'you don't really need to ask me about <em>me</em>, do you?' he confirms, less cocksure, less brazenly arrogant than before. she wants to take everything back all of a sudden. </p><p>         'I don't need to ask what you've been doing, no,' she confirms, dragging herself a little closer to his side. he doesn't flinch. 'but I can still ask about you.' </p><p>         he throws the joint onto the street below just as she reaches to pluck it from between his lithe fingers. she notices that they're blistered, not just the usual callouses on his fingertips from abusing that poor guitar of his, but on the webbed spaces between each digit. she snaps her head away harshly. </p><p>         'I've been me. you know how it goes.' he thinks for a minute, scratching his stubble. she remembers the feeling of that beneath her own fingers, travelling abrasively yet rewardingly up her nerves, the synapses; each touch of him used to explode into a rorschach of color in her mind, no matter where. her fingers flex out into he chilled air of the night reflexively, almost feeling the sharp, stunted hair on his chin as a phantom sensation. </p><p><em>          oh, come back</em>.</p><p>          her stomach starts spinning and spinning and spinning. it's the alcohol. it's probably the alcohol.</p><p>          he looks at her with such conviction: 'been around.'</p><p>         it isn't the alcohol.</p><p>         she can't think of another word to say. that's one thing she always hated about him--<em>oh, </em><em>here we go, bagging on your ex--</em>that he was so much more literate, so much more renaissance than her. no, maybe that wasn't it. everything he said was so <em>final</em>. you could never answer back. kurt would always have the last word, she's sure of it. always. she dances her fingers along the railing. she's playing with fire. he dances his right along to close the distance, but only superficially. their fingernails touch and scrape in a grotesque manner. maybe the unbearable nature of the rough keratin scraping was purposeful, for the rapture of soft skin holding more hardened, mottled skin soon takes its place. </p><p>         'I always liked doing this with you,' he admits. </p><p>         'oh?' </p><p>         her voice wavers and wobbles. </p><p>         'yeah,' he laughs, exaggerated. she feels like a child, being distracted from stupid tears by somebody playing a fool. 'so small. look how easily we fit together, huh?' </p><p>         kurt tightens his hold to demonstrate. her throat tightens painfully, painfully. he's holding her hand with his left. it would be too awkward to hold his right, she observes. maybe the wedding ring was purposeful, too. maybe all of this was.</p><p>         then again, they were both at least five drinks in. </p><p>         'can we go to the bedroom?' she blurts. the hot nausea in her stomach expands the longer he goes without saying a word.</p><p>         'oh, honey. no, I don't--'</p><p>         'please,' she crackles, just short of screaming it from the balcony so the neighborhood knows her strife.</p><p>         he looks hurriedly back inside. the windows have steamed up from the heat of the bodies packed in together there, all plied with alcohol and sweating out all manner of toxins from shuffling around all night. he sighs, and the steam that comes out seems heavier, more dense, than the smoke from the joint. his fingers--both hands, this time--wind up on her waist. just as they used to, but not quite. it's loveless. she goes cold. all the warmth of attention, finally, after all of these years, has dissipated. god knows where she retained it from. </p><p>         'please,' she repeats, placing her hands around his wrists. had he gotten thinner? sometimes the light from the living room would hit his face in just the right conjunction with passing headlights and she could see his face for what it was. sallow, gaunt, jaundiced. he needed sleep, or something more. </p><p>         'we can't. we can't.' </p><p>         as if intended, the next headlights caught a glint on his ring. she wanted to rip it right off. rip his finger off. then rip the right one off so he couldn't even reapply it faithfully. the rage swelled, then simmers, then disappears completely. </p><p>          'just touch me, somewhere, I--'</p><p>          'you're drunk, I don't want to--'</p><p>          'anywhere, anywhere--'</p><p>          she starts forcing his hand, and he rips them away.</p><p>          'no.'</p><p>          'okay.'</p><p>          silence once more. he takes the ring off and puts it on his left finger, waggling it at her as if the last few minutes had never happened.</p><p>          'maybe it'll mean something now,' he grins, disappearing into the party as if he'd never been there at all.  </p><p>         </p>
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